Sudden Storms
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: It was a price Ed had to pay for the sin he and his brother committed. However like every price- this one may be much too steep for him to handle. Alphonse is aware of this even if Ed isn't. Which is why he stays so close to his once brother. Rated M for a reason. Al/Fem Ed in later chapters. Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

What happened was an accident.

A sheer twist of fate that had in turn stolen even more from them than just the semi transmuted life of their dead mother and the physical being of Alphonse Elric. It had also stolen two limbs, created more trauma than neccessary, and in the end...changed Edward Elric from a natrually born male- to a young girl with very precious few memories of Alphonse Elric.

And that was perhaps part of what the young boy found so cruel.

They had known from the beginning that trying to bring their mother back from the dead was a taboo that would cost them. But they had never imagined that it would cost them so damn much. In the span of mere moments the two siblings had had everything they had ever known ripped away from them.

The warmth and love of their mother... Again.

Alphonse his body- before his brother's intervention.

And Ed...an arm and a leg coupled with the second price of a physical transformation from one gender to another, along with the loss of the first several years of his-er-her, Alphonse meant _her-_life. And along with that second price, the knowledge that his brother would eventually pay a heavier toll.

A transmutation circle had been seared into the skin of his brother's new body. Directly over the stomach where once upon a time male insides resided. And with it came an ominous warning that any with or without the ability to use alchemy could use it to ensure that their seed would take root.

Whatever that meant.


	2. Chapter 2

Alphonse Elric leaned over the unconscious form of his once older brother with a wet rag in hand. His expression one of absolute concentration as he gently wiped at the crimson staining the soft skin at the corner of the girl's mouth, chin and throat hoping to erase the evidence of her illness before morning while simutaneously monitoring the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest to make sure that she was breathing okay.

Once assured that the petite figure was breathing alright, amber eyes shifted back to his current task as small white teeth bit down on his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

This was so frustrating!

And how could it not be? Ever since the day he and his brother had tried to bring their mother back to life- everything had changed for them. And not neccessarily for the better. He had come out of the encounter with the entity claiming to be the 'god' of the gate relatively intact. But his brother Ed however...had paid every toll that the beast had demanded of him.

Losing an arm.

Losing a leg.

And then had his gender changed from male to female while some of his memories had been erased by the experience. Supposedly, their Granny Pinako, had said that it may have been to keep himself sane as the painful changes in his body had occurred. It made sense, Alphonse supposed, that his brother's mind would suffer from some of the strain that he had suffered physically.

So perhaps it made sense.

On top of coming out of the other side of the gate a girl and missing some of his memories, Ed had also been branded on her stomach by a transmutation circle which was meant to be part of the toll paid so that Alphonse wouldn't suffer.

Which was another thing that Alphonse found so frustrating at the moment. His brother had suffered far more than one heavy price partially to save him. And now even four years after the event had gone down- he was sitting by his broth-er sister's? bedside. Carefully scrubbing the blood from her sensitive skin while she slept somewhat fitfully on the bed.

He rubbed some of the blood caked on her chin and neck for a second and must have applied too much pressure because his charge twitched in her sleep and then twisted her head around a little bit as she cracked her eyes open to look at him for a moment.

_Those eyes_- Alphonse thought sadly, Those eyes that had once been so like his own now looked as if they were the eyes of a stranger. Sure the shape was still the same. The lashes length and color. The shape and color of the eye brows... But the eyes themselves were a green color.

Nothing at all like his gold colored ones. And yet, the fire that they usually held- even now when she was in so much pain that he wondered how she managed to keep from screaming her head off for hours... That- That was entirely his brother.

"Al?" She said his name like his brother too. Al concluded as he sat back on his heels for a moment- taking the rag away from her skin for a moment and setting the bloodied piece of fabric across one of his legs so that he could reach out and push her long pale blond hair back away from her sweaty face.

"Hey, did I wake you?" Al asked in an apologetic tone as she reached up to grasp his hand weakly in one of her own and gave him a small, forced smile.

"Not really," She lied as she took a shuddering breath. "I kind of feel like I need a shower." She said as his fingertips played with her bangs a little. The motion of his fingers must have been lulling her back to sleep. Either that or she was simply too weak at the moment to bother going through with her desire to get up and move into the bathroom.

_Damn gate and it's god-_ Alphonse thought darkly even as he gave her a small smile and promised her that she could take a shower later on. In a few more hours. But only as long as she got some more sleep. She barely moved her head to nod before her eyes slid closed and she was once again asleep.

Heaving a sigh, Alphonse picked the rag back up and then quickly stood up and walked into the bathroom to re wet it and paused in the doorway when he noticed the faint traces of blood on the counter of the sink and a small puddle of it on the floor where he had found her on her knees vomiting several hours ago. And scowled.

He would have to clean the room using alchemy to keep it from being seen by others who came here sometimes to speak to him and his sister.

Working quickly, he re wet the rag and then wrung it out a bit- and then shut off the tap and making his way back to his sister's side where he would repeat the process of trying to clean the blood off of her while she slept for another hour before he would then clean the bathroom and use alchemy to incinerate the rag that he'd used before returning to the bedroom where he would spend the remainder of his time stretched out on the bed next to his sister, just holding her hand while she slept.


	3. Chapter 3

Eve jerked awake with a little bit of a start when she felt something heavy wrap around her waist as she was dragged a little across the bed she'd been sleeping so soundly on mere moments ago only to wind up half laying on top of her brother Alphonse who was snoring softly in his sleep.

Flushing at catching her brother in her bed snoozing she raised her hand to slap him, and suddenly stopped when she realised that he had dark circles under his eyes. A sure indication of just how rough things had been on him last night when she had gotten sick. Letting her breath leave her lungs in a small puff that blew some of her long bangs away from her face, she dropped her arm slowly so as she wouldn't disturb Al and then squirmed until his arm fell away from her body. Leaving her free to move about unhindered.

If she recalled right, Al had promised that once she was rested up a bit more she could have a shower. And since she was feeling a bit better and her stomach wasn't cramping so painfully anymore- and- She glanced down at Alphonse again just to make sure he was really still asleep and then grinned. And since he was still out of it and couldn't stop her at the moment, she'd just go ahead and take her shower while she could.

Quietly getting up off of the bed, she made her way across the room that she and Al shared and grabed some clothes from the dresser. Nothing too flashy or girly, just...the norm for her. Panties, a weird torture device known as a bra, some socks, a baggy black shirt, and some clean pants- and then made her way to the bathroom and set everything down on the counter and stripped slowly due to some aches that she was still experiencing.

Once she was down to her panties and bra, she took a moment to look in the mirror above the sink. And nearly flinched at what she saw.

Dear god in heaven... How could she possibly be Edward Elric? True enough she looked slightly similar to Al- what with the blond hair and some facial features...but everything else. The green eyes, the length of her soft blond hair, the gentle curve of her jaw, the slender build of her petite body, the size of her breasts (though slightly small) would have been more noticable if not for the clothing she wore. And then there was her hieght.

Fucking five foot four. Which was the total opposite of Alphonse's slightly impressive five foot eight.

No wonder everyone called her a pipsqueak. She thought in despair as she reached up and ran her fingers through her thick, tangled hair. No- there was no real way that she could believe that she had once been the boy Edward Elric. Not even after Alphonse had told her everything that he knew.

Sighing, she glanced down at her automail arm and wondered if it and her missing leg were the only things linking her to her former self or if maybe something else was. God knew her relationship with Alphonse had been off ever since she had awoken in the home of Pinako, and Winry Rockbell. Her memories of Alphonse from before were sketchy.

She knew that she knew his name. His age and blood type. How many times he had been sick as a baby and how many times he had wet the bed over the years. The fact that she held some sort of peculiar affection for him. But she couldn't recall anything else beyond that. Where as Alphonse and Winry and Pinako had all taken turns trying to refresh her memory.

But nothing they had told her seemed real to her. Confusing yes, but not real.

Which had made the first few months after what had happened, fairly awkward for her. Interacting with the three had been almost painful to watch from an outsider's point of view, she had floundered and stumbled around so much verbally that she had almost taken up the habit of shutting herself in the bedroom in an effort to hide her embarrassment.

Although if she were to be totally honest, there were still times when she felt the need do so. But they were fewer and far between now. And Alphonse reacted to the few times she did shut herself away from him with such amazing grace that she would cry if he looked directly at her.

Mentally shaking herself for wasting so much time on such thoughts, she finished stripping and then turned on the tap in the shower and waited a moment for the water to heat before climbing in. She needed to clean herself quickly if she wanted to get dressed and grab something to eat before waking Al and then heading off to meet Mustang and give her latest report.


	4. Chapter 4

Al didn't recall managing to doze off enough to even go to sleep. Much less keep track of just how long he must have been under. But it must have been for quite a while since when he finally awoke- it was to his sister shaking him gently. Her slender hand resting on one of his shoulders as she leaned over him. She had bathed, was the first thing his sleep muddled mind noted before he practically bolted upward. Almost hitting his head on the underside of her jaw as he did so.

Panic lacing his blood so that his body pulsed with adrenaline- waking him up completely as he looked his sister over with wide almost frightened eyes for any sign of injury or distress. Good god, what the fuck was wrong with him? Why had he fallen asleep knowing how she always got after being ill?

Any number of things could have happened to her in the shower and the stupid girl would never have bothered calling out for help or trying to wake him!

He understood that not waking him from his sleep was her little way of trying to be considerate, but _Jesus_... A guy could only take so much stupidity from his sibling. Running his hands over his face in an nervous effort to calm himself before he snapped at her like a rabid animal or something, he took a moment to take several deep breaths before demanding to know, "How long have you been awake?"

Awake. Unsupervised. And still in a weakened state from the night before.

She glanced at the clock on the bedside table and took note of the time and then tried to calculate how long she had been up and about, but in the end the answer eluded her. Probably because she hadn't bothered to check the time when she woke. But it couldn't have been for more than an hour and thirty minutes since she had only recently gotten out of the shower and her long blond hair was still damp.

Not only that but they had about two hours to kill until she had to meet with Colonal Mustang about her latest assignment.

Shrugging her shoulders, she gave him the _I-dunno-look_ that had him giving her a narrow eyed glare before she said, "Come on and get up. We have some time, so I thought that we could go grab some food before I have to meet Mustang."

Al continued to glare at her for a moment before sighing and forcing himself to relax a little bit.

No use in worrying over what may or may not have happened since she seemed okay enough. "Alright. Alright." He finally said in defeat before looking her over again and taking note of the various things that he usually took stock of after she was ill for a night. Things like the coloring in her face- which was still a bit on the pale side, but getting better. Slowly.

And there was also the way she moved her body, sometimes after being ill...her body became sore in various places like her chest, stomach and lower abdomen (he supposed it was from when she went through the change from male to female). Sometimes the slower she moved, the longer it would take for her to completely rebound and recover.

This morning however, she seemed almost totally fine. She was moving almost normally which meant that any aches and pains she might have normally felt were dulled to the point where he didn't have to help her out much to compensate. But he would do so anyways. Just for today so that she could make a full recovery before he turned her loose on the unsuspecting world like he usually did.

"Okay, let me shower and get dressed then we'll head over to central to grab some food in the mess hall and then from there go meet up with Colonal Bastard."

"So we're still calling Mustang that, huh?" She asked almost innocently as Alphonse got up off of the bed and stretched his arms up over his head and then popped his neck a bit to work out the kink in it before glancing down at her as she sat down on the edge of the bed beside him to pull on her boots. His unblinking amber eyes monitoring her every action before he said slowly,

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because." Was all he was willing to say about his dislike of the man to her. He simply didn't want her to relise how deeply he disliked the Colonal and how manipulative he was. Nor was he willing to say anything about how of late he had noticed the man looking at her strangely. So strangely that he felt it was only a matter of time before the man either said or did something to expose her secret.

And he didn't like the idea of Mustang knowing that she was a girl.

_Not. One. Little. Bit._


End file.
